Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 14 February 2022 to Question 119565 on Research: Expenditure, how much money from the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment will be allocated to R&D.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment is funded from Defra’s central R&D budget so is wholly considered R&D.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 14 February 2022 to Question 119564 on Carbon Emissions: Research; if he will publish details of the open competition referred to; whether the research programmes will be regionally targeted; and how much and what proportion of the £75 million for Net Zero-related R&D will be spent on (a) offshore wind and (b) advanced manufacturing.
Answered by Jo Churchill
This budget is for the future financial years and contracts for that expenditure have not been placed at this time. We will follow Defra procurement policy and best practice in determining the optimum route to delivering the requirement, which could include the approach to potential suppliers. Open opportunities, where applicable, and resulting contracts will be published on Contracts Finder.
Currently £51.9 million of the overall budget has been allocated internally to specific programmes in advance of procurement. The remainder is reserved for emerging priorities, and collaborations with other Government departments and research bodies, which will be allocated over the course of the Spending Review period. From this initial allocation £3.5 million is allocated to enabling offshore wind and marine spatial prioritisation. No budget is currently allocated to advanced manufacturing.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to page 175 of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, how much and what proportion of the £75 million for Net Zero-related R&D, which is to be spent over the next three years, will be spent outside the Greater South East.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The programme of research and development that aims to deliver evidence for our path to being a Net Zero country will be commissioned through open competition. The UK is well served with world leading environmental science research departments, many of which are outside London and the Greater South East. It is not currently possible to state exactly how Defra’s Spending Review commitment to funding £75 million worth of Net Zero work will be split between the Greater South East and other parts of England as the vast majority of these research programmes will be new.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the announcement of 14 January 2022 on Emergency pesticide authorisation approved to protect sugar beet in England if specific conditions are met, what assessment his Department has made of the environmental impact of such neonics; and if he will take steps to prevent pollinator decline in accordance with the National Pollinator Strategy.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The emergency authorisation of Cruiser SB to protect sugar beet was given following a full assessment against the legal requirements. These are that there must be special circumstances, use must be limited and controlled, and the authorisation must appear necessary because of a danger that cannot be contained by other reasonable means.
Scientific evaluation of any risks to humans, animals and the environment (including risks to bees and other pollinators) is central to the assessment. In taking the decision, the Secretary of State was informed by the assessment carried out by the Health and Safety Executive and additional scientific advice from the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides and Defra's Chief Scientific Advisor.
The scientific assessment flagged that there could be a risk to bees not from the crop itself but from neonicotinoid residues in the soil which could be taken up by plants in the field or field margin. The neonicotinoid breaks down over time and so the authorisation is subject to a condition that no flowering crop can be planted for 32 months following any planting of sugar beet treated with Cruiser SB. This substantially reduces the risks.
Pollinators are a priority for this Government, and we are taking action alongside many partners to implement the National Pollinator Strategy's provisions. We are restoring and creating habitat for wild and managed pollinators to thrive; addressing pressures including by supporting Integrated Pest Management (IPM); raising awareness across society so that people can take action themselves; and supporting monitoring and research.
The Environment Act also requires a new legally binding target to be set to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, which will drive actions to deliver nature recovery and help to reverse declines in species, including pollinators.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to page 175 of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, what proportion of the £140 million to spent over three years for the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment will be spent on R&D (a) outside the Greater South East and (b) in the Greater South East.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The UK is well served with world leading environmental science research establishments, many of which are outside London and the SE. The Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment aims to deliver high quality national and local evidence across all parts of England to assess the state and condition of biodiversity, ecosystems, and natural capital assets across our terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. It is not possible currently to state exactly how funding will be split between the Greater South-East and other parts of England while the programme is still in its pilot phase.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to page 175 of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, what proportion of the £24 million for the UK Seafood Fund will be spent on R&D; and what proportion of that R&D spending will happen outside the Greater South East.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
All of the £24 million referred to in the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper will be spent on research and development around the UK. The remaining £76 million of the UK Seafood Fund will be used for Infrastructure (at least £65 million), Skills and Training (up to £10 million) and boosting access to international markets (£1 million).
Nearly half of the £24 million has been allocated to the Seafood Innovation Fund (SIF) to develop new technology and equipment. Around 80% of SIF funding has been allocated to projects outside the Greater South East.
The remainder of the £24 million has been allocated to the Fisheries Industry Science Partnerships scheme that provides funding for research projects. We will shortly be announcing the successful bidders from the first funding round with funding to be allocated across the UK.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to develop a national strategy for the re-use and recycling of unused household paint.
Answered by Jo Churchill
We recognise that solvent-based paint, paint thinner and white spirit are hazardous and as such, disposal can be challenging.
We welcome voluntary action being taken by industry, such as the British Coatings Federation’s Paintcare proposals, and community initiatives, supported by local authorities, to allow donations to local community repaint schemes. The law at present encourages reuse and recycling through waste hierarchy obligations on all waste handlers.
To strengthen action on reuse, we will shortly publish our new Waste Prevention Programme for England on which we consulted in 2021, including on steps to improve local systems and services that facilitate reuse and recycling of this nature.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to improve free access to the countryside and nature for all UK residents.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government's 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP), published in January 2018, makes major new commitments to connect people with the environment to improve health and wellbeing. Building on this work, the Green Recovery Challenge Fund has recently awarded £80million to nature-based projects across England to support a green recovery from Covid-19. The fund has "connecting people with nature" as one of its three key objectives. An example of one of the projects delivered is GreenSpace for Health, which aims to make NHS sites greener and provide outdoor wellbeing sessions for NHS staff.
The Government is also working to create new access through the completion of the England Coast Path: a 2700 mile long National Trail around the whole of the English coast. Following its inclusion in the Conservative Party manifesto and the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, Defra has also asked Natural England to prepare a report proposing the Coast to Coast as a National Trail between St Bees in Cumbria and Robin Hoods Bay in North Yorkshire. The goal is to realise the full environmental, social and economic benefits that a new National Trail will bring by working closely with local stakeholders to identify opportunities, for instance for link routes which maximise accessibility to and from the Trail to local centres of population.
We will also continue to pay for heritage, access and engagement through our existing environmental land management schemes and we will consider how to maintain investment in these areas as part of future schemes.
On top of this, we are leading a £5.77million cross-Governmental project to test nature-based social prescribing in seven test and learn sites, run national research work to understand its scalability, and deliver a robust project evaluation. This will help improve mental health and wellbeing by connecting more people to nature.
Lastly, the recently announced £9million Levelling Up Parks Fund will create over 100 green spaces across the UK on land which is unused, undeveloped or derelict. The Fund, led by the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities, will seek to increase accessibility to quality green space across the UK, helping to level up areas which are most deprived of green space and provide communities with a place to come together.